Terps focus on themselves as they await Big Ten tourney opponent
COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- As the Terps await their opponent for the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals, they find themselves in a different position than they’ve been in most of the year.
Being ranked in the top 10 for every week of the regular season except the last two put a target on Maryland’s back that had its opponents highly focused and motivated. Now that the Terps have lost four of their last six games and are ranked No. 18 in the latest AP Poll, they’ve fallen slightly out of the spotlight and are driven by their doubters.
“In the beginning of the year, we were No. 1, No. 2 or we were in the top 10 in the rankings and everyone pretty much had respect for us,” sophomore point guard Melo Trimble said. “And now that I think we took a couple of losses, people have just lost respect for us and we’re not in the picture of anything. Just knowing what people are saying about us makes us play with a chip on our shoulder and makes us more hungry, and that’s something that we all like.”
Trimble added that he and his teammates are ready to move on from the regular season and are officially in postseason mode.
“We feel pretty great,” Trimble said. “We know we’re starting over. It’s the postseason so everyone is 0-0. And we have the mindset just to win. We’re more dialed in, more focused. And we know the regular season is behind us and we have much bigger plans ahead of us.”
Terps head coach Mark Turgeon said the biggest advantage from having a double-bye in the conference tournament and getting to wait longer to find out who Maryland will play is being able to focus on the weaknesses of his own team instead of having to gameplan for an opponent.
Maryland has gone through periods this season where the defense is clicking but the offense is stagnant. The Terps have also had stretches where their offense looks much improved, but the defense is porous. The latter is where Turgeon’s team has found itself recently and defense has been the biggest focus in practice this week.
“It’s great not thinking about who you’re going to have to play,” Turgeon said. “You have a good idea of who you think it’s going to be, but it’s a good chance for us to really work on us, especially on the defensive end. We have to get back to guarding. We haven’t done that as well, so that has really been an emphasis for us.”
Trimble said the Terps are specifically working on playing better help defense and switching on ball screens, trying to get back to the fundamentals that helped them hold seven opponents under 60 points this season.
“Just our communication and our awareness, playing defense by our principles like closing out, just doing the little things to help us play better defense,” Trimble said.
Maryland not only hopes that the Big Ten Tournament will give them a chance to get back on track defensively before the “Big Dance,” but the Terps are also using this weekend to prepare for the postseason’s one-and-done format.
“We’re looking at it as a mini version of the NCAA Tournament,” shooting guard Rasheed Sulaimon said. “Instead of six games, it’s three games, but we’re going to win or go home.”
The Terps are set to play their first game in the Big Ten Tournament March 11 at 9 p.m. EST at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. Wisconsin will play the winner of Rutgers and Illinois March 10, and Maryland will matchup with the winner of that game.